Background
Stout, Jeffrey Lee was born on September 11, 1950 in Trenton, New Jersey, United States.
( A fascinating study of moral languages and their discon...)
A fascinating study of moral languages and their discontents, Ethics after Babel explains the links that connect contemporary moral philosophy, religious ethics, and political thought in clear, cogent, even conversational prose. Princeton's paperback edition of this award-winning book includes a new postscript by the author that responds to the book's noted critics, Stanley Hauerwas and the late Alan Donagan. In answering his critics, Jeffrey Stout clarifies the book's arguments and offers fresh reasons for resisting despair over the prospects of democratic discourse.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691070814/?tag=2022091-20
( Do religious arguments have a public role in the post-9...)
Do religious arguments have a public role in the post-9/11 world? Can we hold democracy together despite fractures over moral issues? Are there moral limits on the struggle against terror? Asking how the citizens of modern democracy can reason with one another, this book carves out a controversial position between those who view religious voices as an anathema to democracy and those who believe democratic society is a moral wasteland because such voices are not heard. Drawing inspiration from Whitman, Dewey, and Ellison, Jeffrey Stout sketches the proper role of religious discourse in a democracy. He discusses the fate of virtue, the legacy of racism, the moral issues implicated in the war on terrorism, and the objectivity of ethical norms. Against those who see no place for religious reasoning in the democratic arena, Stout champions a space for religious voices. But against increasingly vocal antiliberal thinkers, he argues that modern democracy can provide a moral vision and has made possible such moral achievements as civil rights precisely because it allows a multitude of claims to be heard. Stout's distinctive pragmatism reconfigures the disputed area where religious thought, political theory, and philosophy meet. Charting a path beyond the current impasse between secular liberalism and the new traditionalism, Democracy and Tradition asks whether we have the moral strength to continue as a democratic people as it invigorates us to retrieve our democratic virtues from very real threats to their practice.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691123829/?tag=2022091-20
Stout, Jeffrey Lee was born on September 11, 1950 in Trenton, New Jersey, United States.
AB magna cum laude et cum honoribus in religious studies, Brown University, 1972. Doctor of Philosophy in religion, Princeton University, 1976.
Recently, he has championed what he calls "the moral tradition of democracy" as a "background of agreement" shared by participants in the political/social debates taking place in America today. This is his answer to such thinkers as Alasdair MacIntyre and Stanley Hauerwas who believe that participants in such debates do not share enough common ground to prevent their arguments from being intractable. Since obtaining his Doctor of Philosophy in 1976 from Princeton University, Stout has remained there as a Professor of Religion.
His most recent book, Blessed Are the Organized: Grassroots Democracy in America (2010), takes an ethnographic turn, investigating the engaged democratic practices that he has endorsed in his previous work.
( Do religious arguments have a public role in the post-9...)
( A fascinating study of moral languages and their discon...)
(Flight from Authority Religion Morality and the Quest for...)
Stout has been influenced by Richard Rorty and more recently Robert Brandom and, albeit with qualifications, aligns himself with the school of philosophy known as American Pragmatism.
Fellow: American Academy Arts and Sciences. Member: Society Christian Ethics, American Academy Religion (president 2007), Phi Beta Kappa.
Married Sally Jane Starkey, June 2, 1973. Children: Suzannah Elizabeth, Noah Jonathan, Samuel Livingston.